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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

I have two polishes to share today, and I completely regret purchasing both of them. While their colors are beautiful, their formulas are obnoxious. Both of them are easily duped so there is no reason to put up with such thick, gloopy formulas - shame on you China Glaze!

"Dance Baby" is by far my least favorite. I have swatched this polish 3 times and always get the same results- thick looking nails. While this polish is very pigmented, it is also very thick and draggy which leaves lots of bald spots. Having to use multiple coats of such a thick polish makes it almost impossible for it to dry. I'm hoping that perhaps I just got a bad bottle, because I can see most people being disappointed by "Dance Baby".

Dance Baby

"Aquadelic" is almost equally as annoying as "Dance Baby". It isn't quite as thick, but has the same dragging issues. It just doesn't seem to want to spread across the nail.

Aquadelic

I will keep these polishes for nail art purposes, or perhaps some day I'll try using some polish thinner on them. I don't even want to give these away because they're just so disappointing.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

I have yet another amazing holographic polish from Color Club to share today! If you like silver polishes, you will absolutely love this! The formula is awesome (2 coats) and doesn't create any streaking that many silver polishes have. If you love holos but don't care for silver, I would recommend skipping "Worth the Risque". It has a strong holo effect to it, but it gets a bit lost in how flashy the silver base is. I can't wait to pair this with a black holo for some nail art!

I am so in love with the two holos I purchased from Color Club, I'm already working on a wish list for my next order!

Saturday, February 25, 2012

I saw this design on Nail Polish Wars about a week ago and instantly fell in love with it. This is super simple nail art that looks way more complicated than it actually is.

I used China Glaze "Dance Baby" & "Aquadelic" and a beautiful cream black by Finger Paints. I think this turned out okay for my first try, but I think I could do better. Check out the post from Nail Polish Wars to see a gorgeous holographic version as well as instructions on how to re-create this design!

Friday, February 24, 2012

I have fallen so hard for this polish! This is one of those colors that literally made me gasp when I swatched it for the first time. "Fashion Addict" is a light purple with a rather strong holo effect. Pictures don't do it justice, but I have tried anyway!

This is one of my first Color Club polishes and I am very impressed. In addition to being gorgeous, the formula for "Fashion Addict" is perfect. Application was smooth and easy, only requiring 2 coats. I'm also loving the brush and over all packaging. Something about heavy duty square bottles strikes a chord with me.

I'm already dreaming about my next Color Club purchase... Does anyone have any recommendations?

Thursday, February 23, 2012

I have been looking at Color Club swatches for quite some time, and have finally decided to give them a try! I am slowly coming out of my long standing "polish snob" phase, and now I am trying to branch out to brands other than just OPI. I am hopelessly in love with holographic polishes, so I picked up three holos as well as one neon.

Disco Dress - Fashion Addict - Worth the Risque - Revvvolution

In their bottles, these all look absolutely stunning. I am very excited about "Fashion Addict", it is a light purple with a surprisingly strong holo effect. I was also stunned by "Revvvolution", which is a dark charcoal holo. I purchased this with the intentions of comparing it to "Zeus" by Hits, but then decided it was just too beautiful to keep for myself and have since given it away to a friend for her birthday. She is a die hard black polish fan, so hopefully "Revvvolution" will knock her socks off.

I have already started playing around with these polishes (excluding "Revvvolution") and will post swatches soon!

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Yesterday was my one month blogging anniversary! I can't believe my little baby blog is one month old already :) I had intended to do a post about it, but our internet has been so dysfunctional lately! Picked up a new modem today, so hopefully that solves the problem.

Today, I have swatches of two polishes from China Glaze's Electropop collection! I have 2 more colors from this collection but my pictures came out horrible so I'll have to re-swatch them and post them another day >.<

First is my favorite- "Gothic Lolita". I love this polish not only because its gorgeous, but also because I don't have anything else that is even close as a dupe for it. It is a very flattering mid range purple with subtle blue and pink shimmer running through it. It reminds me of the cupcakes I made for my Mom's birthday last year :)

Gothic Lolita

Shimmers!!

"Make Some Noise"- I was really on the fence about buying this one, it just seemed a little bit boring. Now that I've swatched it, I am really pleased. It is a very orange based red and the formula is just awesome. Its extremely pigmented, and is as if a cream and a jelly had a beautiful baby together. The finish is crazy glossy and slightly "squishy" looking. I only needed 2 coats.

Make Some Noise

I'll have swatches of "Dance Baby" and "Aquadelic" very soon! And perhaps some easy nail art using both of them!

Monday, February 20, 2012

These are the remaining 2 polishes from my Sinful Colors Mini Haul, "Cinderella" and "Mint Apple". The formula on these two is lacking a bit as they take forever to dry, but perhaps I'm just spoiled by other fast drying brands. Fortunately, they're both really beautiful colors!

Mint Apple

"Mint Apple" is a light, seafoamy green with a subtle silver shimmer running through it. The name really throws me off, firstly because a minty apple sounds disgusting, and also because there isn't anything about this polish that reminds me of mints or apples. Despite the weird name, I think this polish is really beautiful. The formula can be a little tricky and requires 3 coats.

Cinderella

This color has gotten a lot of attention lately, and now I realize why. It is a gorgeous light blue base with subtle pink/silver fine glitter. The formula is quite sheer and slow drying, I used 3 coats for this photo and could still see VNL. Next time I use this shade, I will put it on top of a cream base.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

My selections from the ElectroPop collection have arrived and I am SO excited to swatch them! I decided to only go with four, but perhaps I'll change my mind later >.>

Gothic Lolita - Dance Baby - Aquadelic - Make Some Noise

Okay, I have a confession... This is embarrassing, but... I have been such an OPI snob my entire life that these are actually my first China Glaze polishes. I always had this (unjustified) feeling that China Glaze was a "wannabe OPI" brand, but as my love for polish has grown, I realize just how different the two brands are.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

I've been playing around with my newly purchased Sinful Colors polishes, and figured I'd start off with swatches of the three most pigmented out of my group of five. I'll save annoying sheer swatches for another day.

Island Coral

First up is "Island Coral ". This is a really pretty bright orangey coral. Formula on this color is pretty decent, its a bit thin and required 3 coats. Perhaps if you were careful you could get away with two, but I still had a few sheer patches after the second coat.

Oasis

Really liking "Oasis"! It is a bright pink with purple/blue shimmer- not very unique, but still very pretty. Formula was pretty good, quite thin but very pigmented. I only needed 2 coats.

Let's Talk

Last is "Let's Talk". I'm extremely disappointed with my photos of this color, it looks so darn blue in every picture! "Let's Talk" is actually a very lovely dark purple with blue/purple & pink shimmer. This might be my favorite out of five polishes I purchased, not just because the color is gorgeous, but also because the formula was easy to work with- I only needed two coats, and perhaps could have gotten away with one thick coat.

Over all, I feel pleased with my Sinful Colors purchase, especially at 99cents each. I'm not sure if I'd be willing to purchase these in the future as their formulas seem to be hit and miss. Some are opaque while others are quite sheer, but they all seem to be thin and runny which requires a lot more cleanup than I'm used to.

This week's Sinful Colors sale (99 cents!) at Walgreens has been haunting me for the past several days. I was going to resist (because I'm kind of a polish snob) but after seeing a zillion blog posts about it, I caved and made the trip to Walgreens. I didn't have any specific colors in mind except for "Cinderella" which seems to have gotten a lot of attention lately.

I have this weird rule about nail polish brands- I can't just have one or two of a specific brand, I need to have at least 4. So, I ended up buying 5 Sinful Colors polishes, including the very last "Cinderella"!

Let's Talk - Oasis - Cinderella - Mint Apple - Island Coral

While these colors looks gorgeous in their bottles, I must admit- I do not have high hopes for them. Seriously, how good can a $1.99 polish be? Swatches coming soon!

Friday, February 17, 2012

I am so excited to have some real dotting tools! I have been using pens, makeup brushes and toothpicks for far too long! What's even more exciting is the awesome deal I got on this cute little set- I paid less than $4 including shipping. The only downside is that I had to wait for them to come all the way from Hong Kong which took about two weeks, but that's no big deal in my opinion. The set includes 5 different double sided dotting tools- I know they all look the same in this photo, but each one is a little bit different.

For anyone interested- I bought these on EBay and there's still more available. Total cost including shipping was just under $4 :)

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Something about dotted manicures is really holding my interest lately. I just find it to be so simple, but also gives the illusion that you put in a substantial amount of effort. This is also a great method for someone (like me) who has very little nail art skill. Enjoy!

I used "Sparrow Me the Drama (pink), "Do You Lilac It?" (purple) and "Alpine Snow" (white) all by OPI. Pink and purple is obviously very girly, which isn't typically my style, but I like how this came out :)

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

I got exactly what I wanted for Valentines Day- my internets came back! It has been down for the past two days and I thought I would surely die of boredom. How do people survive without internet and Netflix? Well, this is how I survived- cute nail designs! I saw this pattern a while ago on Julep's blog, and liked it so much I've done it twice! Despite not having any real dotting tools, I think I did alright.

OPI - "Do You Lilac It?" and Finger Paints - "Black Expressionism"

Please excuse the tip wear! I actually wore this mani for more than a day which might be a record for me. I used the handle of a makeup brush to make the dots, so some of them are less than perfect. Poor pinky nail only had room for 2 dots.

OPI - "Sparrow Me the Drama" and "Skull & Glossbones"

Again, I'm sporting tip wear- oops! On top of that, winter is destroying my poor digits. Despite all that, I really love this design and I can't decide which color combination I prefer- I love them both!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

The weather has been pretty ugly here for the past few days, nothing but wind, rain and snow. So, I thought I would cheer myself up with a pastel french manicure! I used OPI's "I Think In Pink" and Finger Paints' "Tiffany Imposter".

I think this turned out to be pretty cute, and totally not winter appropriate- I love it! This manicure also made me realize how out of control my thumb nail has gotten, I could seriously shank someone with it! Time to tame it with a good dose of filing!

Thursday, February 9, 2012

What has taken me so long to post pictures of "Flecked"?! It feels like I posted pictures of Motley so long ago! I have attempted to do swatches of "Flecked" a couple times now, but they haven't come out right- damn cloudy days!

Flecked is a gorgeous green flakie topcoat which shifts to blue depending on lighting/position. Here is a swatch over Finger Paints' "Black Expressionism".

Flecked - 2 Coats

On several occasions, I read that "Flecked" and "Motley" are so similar that you don't really need both, so I'm going to show close up comparisons, because I do find them to be quite different.

Motley Flecked

Both comparison shots are 2 coats over black. "Flecked" is definitely far more green than "Motley" and also has much larger flakes. I can't decide which one I love more, they're both gorgeous!

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

I found a nice little gem at the dollar store! Sometimes I can't help but to stroll down the nail polish aisle, and surprisingly an LA Colors polish caught my eye. Typically, I don't like their polishes because they can be very thick and stringy, but this glitter is different! It is in a thin, clear base, and is jam packed with different sized silver glitter. There are tiny silver glitter, and also large, hexagon glitter.

First, I started out with "Black Expressionism" by Finger Paints, which might be the best black polish I've ever used. It only requires one coat- no joke.

Finger Paints - Black Expressionism

Then, I added just one coat of the LA colors silver glitter- it has no name that I can find, sorry!

I think this was a really nice dollar store find, I can't wait to play around with it some more!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Today, I did swatches of perhaps the most perfect red - ever. Every time I use "Big Apple Red" I fall more and more in love with it. I usually have a "love them and leave them" relationship with many of my polishes, but something about "Big Apple Red" keeps me coming back to it- I have made a serious dent in my bottle and may have to purchase a back-up!

I'm a little upset that I did such a sloppy job painting my nails, but today was one of those days where having a steady hand is out of the question for some reason. Typically, I have no issues with this polish- the formula is perfect and requires only two coats (or three if you're OCD about it like I am). I didn't use topcoat in this photo because I wanted to show how glossy this polish is on its own. Love!

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Just wanted to share a quick swatch of Tiffany Imposter. I really love this color (also the formula) and wanted to show how it compares to the authentic Tiffany blue.

My pictures aren't the best (stupid cloudy days!) but you still get the idea :)

Finger Paints - Tiffany Imposter

While the color comparison is close, Tiffany Imposter shows up a little darker,and almost a little "dirtier" than the true Tiffany color. I've enjoyed this color so much, it makes me want to get China Glaze's "For Audrey" to see how they compare :)